Introspection

The subtle experience is inevitable–whether you agree with the subtle experience or not–an internal experience is born and felt. It seems that we collect these internal experiences. We are ravenous for them. They’re inevitable. What is subjective experience? What’s it made out of? What does a meditation teacher have to say about it?

Previously

In the previous article, we spoke of creating space for subjective experience to grow. Now we are going to notice the variations of subjective experience, so we know what we’re looking for.

In the previous article, I called readers to listen; to allow all emotions the space they need to express, without trying to solve them.

To listen through all the noise of our powerful ‘survival’ emotions, (fear, pride, anger, competition)–and find rich subtle world of experience.

Now, after learning to listen, you have removed a problem solving mindset. Now it’s time to listen, but listen to what?

Listen

All that you hear exists within vibration.

Particles vibrate within a medium (i.e. air or water). If you are in contact with that medium (the air or water), the vibrations will reach your ear and are experienced as sound.

Clap your hand, and you shake millions of particles that arrive as sound through air.

Air is a medium. Air delivers the sound that you experience.

Listen 2

All that you experience exists within Akasha. Akasha is the field of subjective meaning.

Akasha is a field of particles, just like water or air. Although, instead of being made of atoms, Akasha particles are particles of subjective meaning. They are made of subjective meaning.

These particles of subjective meaning vibrate within a medium–the Akasha (just like air particles vibrate within their medium–the air).

If, just like water or air, you are in contact with the medium (in this case, Akasha), particles of subjective meaning will vibrate and reach your awareness.

The vibration of subjective meaning will be felt as subjective experience.

Experience the world, and an infinite number particles of subjective meaning vibrate in a fashion to produce your subjective experience.

Akasha is a medium. Akasha delivers your inner subjective world.

Akasha means a lot in Vedic Culture. But it’s most interesting is the function presented here. As the field through which meaning moves.

Perception of an object is usually confused, because its name, its form, and an idea about it are all superimposed upon each other, by doing sanyama on the distinction between these three, we can understand the sound of all living beings

Yoga Sutras of Patanjali, translated by Alastair Shearer.

Contact

You have to be in contact with the medium to get the message. If someone a kilometer away is making sound, and you’re not near the vibrations, you can’t hear it. If you can hear it, the original sound may appear muffled or distorted.

If you’re not in contact with the Akasha, your own field of subjective meaning, you can’t hear it. If you can hear it, the original subjective meaning may appear muffled or distorted.

To hear correctly, you can either learn to listen masterfully, or you can make everything quiet. Making everything quiet in the world around you is hard and unsustainable. Making everything quiet in your head is hard and unsustainable.

When you learn to listen through the problems in your life, you come closer to the Akasha. You come closer to your own field of subjective meaning.

Your field of subjective meaning is made up of billions of particles of subjective experience, these particles interact and create your unique world.

The Akasha is the place in which these particles of subjective experience interact. It’s the field they play on. Just like silence is the space in which sound plays.

If you want to train yourself to hear sound better, listen to the deepest silence, you will recognise that silence it is filled with sounds.

If you can refine your understanding of silence, you will refine your understanding of sound. You will become a connoisseur of all sounds.

If you want to train yourself to experience better, listen through to the place in yourself that you think is most silent, you will recognise that it is filled with experiences.

If you can refine your understanding of the field in which all experience and subjective meaning moves, you will refine your understanding of subjective experience. You will become a connoisseur of all subjective experience and meaning. And if subjective experience and meaning are all that produces your reality, you will become a connoisseur of every single aspect of your living reality.

This, as you might imagine, will feel millions of different qualities of wonderful, fascinating, exciting, and other feelings so complex that humanity will never come close to having a name for them.

You will feel more than you have ever felt before. And you’ll recognise you were half asleep to the world. The world was ecstatic with sound, and you were deaf to it.

Combination

Combine a few distinct sounds, and the sound becomes more, it can convey more meaning. It can be music.

Combine a few distinct particles of subjective meaning, and the subjective experience becomes more, it can convey more meaning. It can be an emotion.

Look at a painting, real close-up, with your nose against the canvas. Listen to a millisecond of a song. These things make little sense in such a microscopic perspective.

Step back from the painting. Listen to 5 minutes of the song. And you have a real, full sense of meaning. These things make a lot of sense with a large perceptive.

To understand Akasha, you zoom in and watch the smallest particles of subjective meaning interact.

You do this through consistent recognition and experience of the field in which all subjective meaning and experience interact.

You will know that you are practicing this technique right when silence becomes heavy, rich, dense, expansive and provokes an effable sense of meaning. It’s time to accept that this recognition is, for many people, and probably for you, a natural, normal and well-documented progression into the full reality of life.

All photos by Marcus Jolly; a Canadian photographer based between Mexico, LA and Vancouver, specializing in portraiture, landscape, and fashion photography | website | instagram | weddings

Yeas ago, Eddie Vero was the youngest person to become an ordained teacher in a 5000 year old meditation practice. He set out to bring a new perspective to the world of meditation, wanting to offer a practical understanding of meditation stripped—back to the ancient practice’s clear, honest and humble roots.

His passion to make traditional meditation more accessible, more human and more down-to-earth, lead him to study under meditation teachers all over the world, eventually gaining over three years and well over 1500 hours of intensive teacher training from qualified instructors before feeling ready to teach meditation with the respect and guidance it deserves.

Eddie Vero is a full time meditation teacher, based in Berlin and working all over Europe.